Ranking Factors

Ranking factors are the things a search engine weighs when it decides which page to show first. Nobody outside Google has the whole list, and it keeps changing anyway. Still, years of testing agree on the small handful that actually moves a page, so start there.

The first is match, which means your page must answer the search that was really typed. Someone looking for 'dentist near me' wants a map, an address and opening hours. Someone typing 'how long does a filling last' wants a short paragraph instead, so the shape matters as much as the words. Give the wrong shape and nothing else you do will save the page.

The second is whether people stay, because Google sees when a reader opens your page and stops searching. It also sees when they come straight back and click the next result, which marks your page as a weak answer. A page that ends the search is a good page. That is why the honest answer belongs near the top and not after four paragraphs of warm-up.

The third is links from other sites, and a link works as a recommendation. Where it comes from therefore matters far more than how many you have collected. One link from a supplier, a trade association or a local paper beats fifty from directories nobody reads.

Then come speed and safety, because a page that takes six seconds on a phone loses people before they read a word. How a site is built therefore decides part of where it lands. The padlock in the address bar counts too, since a site without one is labelled not secure and visitors turn back. That is why Linkysoft treats page speed as part of website design and development, and the certificate and login checks as part of cybersecurity.

Two popular ideas are simply wrong, and the first is keyword density. The belief that a phrase must appear a fixed number of times stopped working more than a decade ago. Repeating a phrase today only makes the page read badly and rank worse. The other is the authority score sold by SEO tools, which those tool companies invented themselves rather than Google. Buying links to lift that score is the exact behaviour that gets a site punished. Linkysoft reports on searches, clicks and enquiries in a digital marketing plan instead, because those are numbers a business can spend.